American Zionist Movement Seen Endangered by Z.o.a -hadassah Rift

“The whole future of the American Zionist movement is in doubt as long as the relationship between the Zionist Organization of America and Hadassah, the two largest Zionist organizations in the world, will not improve,” Mr. Jacques Torczyner, leading member of the National ZOA Executive Council, reported today upon his return from Israel where he attended the world Zionist parley.

Mr. Torczyner hailed the announcement made by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, re-elected president of the World Zionist Organization, that he will strive towards the improvement of these relations. He spoke at the ZOA meeting, at the Hotel Commodore, at which Max Bressler, ZOA president, reported on issues discussed at the World Zionist Congress in which he was a leading participant.

Mr. Bressler said that “it was the consensus of the Congress that insofar as immigration into Israel from the West is concerned no mass immigration is to be expected.” He added that “while the Congress attempted to stimulate Western aliyah, its resolution on this question implied not even permanent mass settlement on the part of American Jews but a year or two of pioneering activities by enterprising youth to help build the country.”

Mr. Bressler denied categorically the reports published in this country of an alleged “political” alliance of the Zionist Organization of America with the General Zionist party of Israel. “I want to take this occasion to deny categorically that there existed at any time since the establishment of the State of Israel any sort of political alliance or political identification of the ZOA with the General Zionist party or any other party in Israel or anywhere else,” he said. He made it clear that “every individual Zionist and Zionist group owe their political allegiance and loyalties to the countries of which they are an integral part in citizenship.”